The alarm does not need to wake her. A sliver of pollen-stained sunlight through the slits in her blinds is enough to shake her out of bed.
She waits for her tea-water to come to a full boil, and then stands with her skull-engraved mug on her rickety porch as she always does. It creaks when she steps out and a few small shards of wood prick at her bare feet.
She inhales the lemongrass steam that rises from her drink, and soaks in the first real summer-borne sunrise in the distance. It burns the morning chill from the swaying blades of grass. It is a lot pinker than the last few she's seen still drenched in lingering snowy cold. It is like the sky is blushing, apologetic for the harsh clouds it once brought here, dropping hail and frost and misery. There is also a pale gold stream mixed in, and she thinks of chipped seashells and loose ribbon as it surfaces over the whispering ocean.
She hears another porch whine and turns to see her new, bleary-eyed neighbor glaring at her.
"You look hungover," she says, withholding a smile.
"These walls are way too thin," he groans. His voice is like gravel, sandpaper. Rough, but stern with a smoothing purpose. "I could hear you breathing all night."
"Slow down, Edward."
He runs a hand through his untamed, alabaster hair. She has memories of snow again and shudders. "What?" he mumbles.
Maka waves it off. "Sparkly stalker vampires in mainstream media."
"Sorry. Not in touch with my inner 14-year old girl."
"Really? I never would have guessed. You wake up like one."
"Feisty at 4:30 AM." He smiles just the slightest, and she catches a glimpse of his razor-edge teeth. "Somehow, I like it."
She hides the ruddy shade of her cheeks in the veil of rising light. "Let's get to work. I'll make you some coffee when we get there. Gotta prepare you for Labor Day Weekend."
He leans against his porch door and closes his eyes. "Extra sugar, no cream."
His teeth are sharp, but sweet, she thinks.
He often finds her at the end of his shifts in the shallows of her office, sinking not-so-gracefully in accounting records and still-unpaid bills, some curled at the edges with the slow-rising humidity. Her hair is - as it is right now - usually down, and falls in a slight-frizzed dusted-blonde curtain just a bit past her small shoulders and her thin and exposed collarbone that continues to draw his eyes. Her hands hold her head up now; the only reason his gaze lands so often on her open skin is because her emerald eyes are lost to an unruly amount of paperwork; she looks unnatural and awkward in this light, like a land animal thrown to sea and left to struggle. There is no sparkle to her stare – ever - in this stifling spare room.
He remembers when Liz called him a few weeks ago with a suggestion. But mostly, he remembers sitting across from Maka's father alone at dinner just a day ago, the guilt of his new secret, and the weight of her dad's words hit him like a punch to the gut.
"We're not against her, we're for her. As you get closer to her, you'll understand why she needs this. You'll want it, too."
She looks like her dad now, cracked and overburdened.
He is quiet for a moment. He does not know her well enough to save her just yet. He never knows how to approach her in these moments of weakness on his own. He sits in the ancient office chair so cautiously it's almost like it might be covered in shattered glass. The stress that radiates from her soft skin throws small goosebumps onto his own.
She bites her bottom lip so hard for a moment he's afraid she'll draw blood. Her body is becoming a silent battlefield before his eyes.
Soul clears his throat, so gentle it almost gets lost in the trill of the ceiling fan, almost stuck in the thin spaces between her burdening stacks of envelopes.
She sucks in a sharp breath and he fidgets in his seat, wrings his new work cap. She shakes her head and he watches, momentarily captured, as her bangs and layers sweep back into place as if they'd never left. She smiles then, a little off-color. "Sorry, Soul. And thank you. I didn't even need to supervise you as long as I did. You can go home now, if you want." She scribbles another note to herself in an empty margin.
He scratches the back of his neck, sanguine eyes shifting as he leans forward. "You, uh, okay?"
Maka shoves more strength into her grin. "Just behind on paperwork."
"I'm sure." His stare returns to the overflowing checkbook stuffed beneath one of her hands. Her glare sobers him. "You know, it's only 3 o' clock."
She nods, eyebrows scrunched.
"I mean, you have time to catch up on... that." His voice cracks at the fringes.
"Get to the point."
"I need detergent. Deodorant. Hair gel. You need a break."
"Soul, what do you want?" Her voice is a blade.
"I need tour part two. I... don't know how to get to Target."
"I can let you borrow my GPS."
"I want to get to know you better," he blurts. His heart falls to the floor of his ribs and his stomach rises to his throat. Maka's father told him to try to open her up, but these were his own words and sentiments, and it scares him. Somewhere within he knows that what might unlock her could open him, too. He's diving into cold water without any sort of protection.
Her eyes widen saucer-size like his own, though her blush does not run as deep as his. She throws her hair into loose pigtails and shuffles some of her envelopes and notes. Maka cannot connect their gazes without a heart-skip. Her voice is breathless when she says, "Okay," and leads him out the door without another word.
Her car surprises him, as he expected quite a different caravan than the one they slide into. An antique Lincoln or Chevy, maybe. He even pictured her in a neon Scion TC. However, it's an aching Subaru Outback - a cornflower blue of some sort and wind-beaten tan - and it sits in her parking space, despite its fading colors and mismatched tires, like a proud family heirloom.
Soul straps on his seatbelt, but keeps it loose. She glares from the corner of her eye as she puts on her on and tightens it as much as it will go, to make a point. He laughs.
"Aren't these prone to all kinds of leaks? You know, expensive upkeep?" he asks as he swipes a finger across the marked dashboard; no dust. "Criss-crossed internal structure or something like that."
"Bad on gas, and yeah, a few pump leaks here and there that can get annoying, I'll admit." She starts the rusted engine with some words of encouragement to her vehicle. "But I was after safety rating, not maintenance fees."
"But you must not drive that much," he says.
"You don't have to drive far to be in danger." Her words are laced with a sadness so thick he does not speak another word. Hers have silenced him indefinitely.
He knew his inner layers and poisons ran deep, but they were easy to assume, black and white. Clear. Hers, he's starting to realize, are filled with a thousand shades of gray between the two ends.
He is scared he could get lost in that endless, unknown space. He sinks deeper into the leather seat. He thinks of the way certain bills get lost in her office, trapped between a few others and out of her notice after a while. He could become just another shade, a blur in her memory.
He gazes out the window as they pass more seashore, more small town. He wonders if anyone has ever tried to count every grain of sand in their spare time.
She watches his gaze become bewildered the moment they move past the sliding doors. He stays in place with his mouth agape, and it's as if he's awakening for the first time as a ghost. Lost, disoriented, out-of-body. She wonders if she could put her hand right through him.
"Uhh, Soul, I know why I had to drive you here, but do I have to guide you through the store, too?"
"Sorry." Clarity floods his red-edged eyes. "Sometimes I forget I'm not at home anymore. Every Target is really different."
"Luckily, every Target labels their aisles. I think you're going to make it out okay." She nudges him with her shoulder, and he catches a small whiff of some kind of raspberry and vanilla mix. "Let's go. I'll hold your hand if you get scared."
He grins. "Then what if I said I'm scared now?"
Maka puffs out her cheeks and stomps ahead, the sound of her flapping sandals overwhelming in the quiet of the store. "You should be!"
He follows her without fear, but with some distance.
He finds her by a basket of clearance toys, picking through it with such thought and care she could be filling in the empty boxes of a crossword. She removes a tacky, glitter-gunned baton. He is in shock as she whirls it around, grabs another two from the bin, and begins to juggle and spin them all at once.
Soul steps so close to her he feels the light breeze from the tosses. His eyes follow one baton briefly, then catch her wildfire gaze. "Have you done this your whole life or somethin'?"
She shakes her head but does not lose her pace or balance. "I was a baton twirler in high school." She smiles. "I was pretty popular then, believe it or not."
"I believe it."
She throws him an inquiring gaze.
"You got a light to you," he says. He did not fear her temper, but he fears the way her presence alone causes so many slips of his tongue, so much honesty.
Maka throws two back into the basket and continues to play with one, rolling it down her arm, across her shoulders. "A light?"
"Yeah. A... radiance. Almost like you've gotta bigger soul than most of us, I guess." He stutters. "Maybe it's got wings or something."
She catches the baton in one hand and bursts into laughter. "A winged soul? Do you even hear yourself?"
"I can see it right now. I see it a lot when you're laughing. Smiling." He makes an unclear series of hand gestures, and she laughs more, but starts up her twirling again.
"Slow down, Shakespeare. You're starting to woo me." She puts her free hand to her chest.
A thought flickers for such a brief time in his head -the flit of a hummingbird's wing, a lightening vein pulsing - he swears it never occurred: How fast is her heart beating? "Imagine if that baton were a scythe." His voice cracks.
She pivots with the last spin of the baton and stops with the edge of it pressed lightly to his neck. "That'd be a scary world, me wielding a scythe." She throws it into the basket to join the others, probably into eventual oblivion. "You have a lot of weird thoughts."
He slouches just the slightest. "Yeah. I guess." He turns away and wanders toward the aisles packed with detergent, with wrinkle-flattening sprays. He thinks of his shopping list, and ignores the buzz shaking his heart to the core.
Her heart stumbles, too. She's only known him a few days, but it feels like in another place and time, she's known him for a thousand. She takes a deep breath and trails after him.
"Let's hurry," she murmurs as he struggles to select a shampoo. "I have other places I want to show you on the tour today that can't be seen in every city and state in the US."
She tries to imagine, as they make their way back to her car, what his soul might be shaped like, what color it might be. She thinks maybe bronze, or orange. She thinks of music, of scythes and pin-striped suits. She thinks of sharp teeth, but a radiant, mischievous smile.
She wonders if their souls could ever match, meld.
"We've been driving down long roads a while," he says, and the glass-shallow silence cracks.
"You scared?" She smiles.
"Just in unfamiliar territory."
"I forgot you're used to the concrete jungles of New York."
"Everythin' kinda looks the same out here. And the sun is setting sorta quickly. Tree, tree, tree, curvy road. Dead body."
She rolls her eyes. "That's what the last guy I brought out here said to me."
He glares at her from his slump in her old leather seats. "You don't seem to be afraid of anything. I don't understand it."
"My mother used to say stubborn will is what keeps you alive."
"I can believe it. But come on," he murmurs as he rises a little in his seat, "you've gotta be afraid of something. Everyone has fears. If we didn't have fear, we wouldn't have courage."
"Tell me your fears first," she replies, her grin unwinding at the edges.
"One of my greatest fears is getting... too close to people," he admits without thought, without hesitation. "I'm afraid to let people in." Soul's eyes have wandered far from the reach of hers, clouded in retrospect. "Letting someone know all about me, and then they just up and leave. It's why I've... never quite been in a serious relationship. The idea that someone who knows every part of you could just disappear."
The Subaru hits a crater-sized hole in the road, and it gives them both a distracted moment to reflect.
Maka's mouth goes a little dry. Her fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and he watches her knuckles turn ghost-white. "That's a fear of mine, too. I can't say I've ever had a serious connection with anyone beyond my mother. Love is vulnerability."
"But it can be powerful as well, I guess, if you get it right."
"I certainly haven't ever gotten it right." A tiny smirk alights on her lips. "Can I tell you something? You can't ever tell anyone else."
She finds him staring intensely when she briefly glances in his direction, and blushes under the pressure of his sanguine eyes. He doesn't respond, just waits, like a haunting statue.
The smirk flutters off, though the mischievous glint to her eyes remains intact. "I slept with the entire football team in high school."
"You're kiddin' me. You seem like such a..." He gulps when she catches him nearly saying prude, bookworm, rule-abiding citizen. "Like, you just wouldn't do that." Soul looks away once more, and plays with the antiquated roll-up windows.
"I used to twirl batons with fire on the ends. I can draw quite a crowd when I try. But I could never be anchored."
He snorts.
"Now tell me something," she says. "Try to top that."
He sighs. "I don't think I have anything that competes with such an accomplishment."
"Try."
"I dealt some pot in high school."
She waits.
"Mainly to the librarian and the principal."
After a long pause, she bursts into laughter.
He wonders why he ever thought she could be prude.
She pulls over on a mainly-vacant side street, scattered with a few overpriced, oversized houses with tar-top driveways as smooth as polished stone and lawns so green the blades could have been cut from the emerald in her eyes. Despite the magazine-perfect appearance, no cars are parked, and no lights or life flicker in the windows no matter how hard he stares. He grimaces, thinks of all the post-apocalyptic stories he's read and prepares himself.
"Copper Lantern Lane," she says as she stands beside him. "My mother actually wanted to buy a house here just because of the name, but no other families every moved here, so she and my father decided against it. But sometimes she would still drive me here for walks."
The answer to the shape and color of his soul bursts into her head: a copper lantern. She wonders if some part of her mother knew, somehow, that this sort of light would eventually come into her life, all bronze-shine and sharp-teeth. She was always like that, able to predict things no one else would ever guess. Things that never really seemed as if they would be important until they occurred.
"Come on." Maka puts her hands on his shoulders and turns him away from the eerie neighborhood. "This actually isn't the main attraction of this trip. I'll take you to the real treasure."
Soul follows her, but steals glances behind them, as if expecting some kind of mutant creature to leap out from the neatly-trimmed bushes at any second. "This is no treasure," he grumbles.
They cross a cracked road curved like a stream into rolling hills, the pavement still warm underfoot from the direct exposure to a new summer sun. They walk a wooded path beside an abandoned cranberry bog. She weaves over the root-spined terrain like a shadow, fluid and silent.
"Again," he says between heaving breaths, "your lack of fear is horrifying."
"There aren't zombies out here."
He stops short. "How did you even know I was thinking that?"
"I've got a super brain. That's why I have no fear."
"Bullshit."
"Try to disprove it after I just read your mind."
"This is stupid and making it harder to catch my breath."
Without thinking, she grabs his hand and strength seems to enter his muscles and bones once again. He thinks it must be adrenaline from the idea of the undead in the nearby trees and lakes.
"Just a little longer," she promises, and he grips her hand tighter with some sort of hope and hangs on for dear life as she leads him up one last hill. "Here." They struggle up the last few inches of a grassy knoll between two blossoming trees.
Soul takes a deep breath, then looks forward. He smiles in the wake of hers.
Miles of out-of-season cranberry bogs stretch over various hills and around some stubby trees and beaten-dirt paths. The grasses sprouting through after being picked look like they've been rough-streaked by an inexperienced painter, ruddy and dried-golden. The trees at the borders are thickening with new leaves, and he can smell them, even from hundreds of feet away. The sunset drenches it all in jaded orange and pink. He can see some stars poking through.
"This is a treasure," he admits, and he plops down beside her on the soft ground.
She leans back. "I know."
"Why'd you show me this?" he asks.
She takes a moment. "I guess so we'll learn to trust each other. We did agree to be partners for the summer. I think this proves we can rely on each other."
"As long as we don't get eaten on the way back." He laughs as she shoves him.
The breeze carries the sour scent of old, wild cranberries, and the muskier scent of oak. He's not used to wind without a grease-coating, the fumes of speeding taxis and hot dog stands. He's used to being surrounded by all sorts of noise - horns blaring, chatter, street vendors. He remembers how, in a crowd of people, he could feel disconnected.
And now, with just one other person, he feels more connected than ever.
He tries to ignore the black blood thoughts in his head, tries to force back the fear of being known by someone other than himself.
"There's someone here to see you," Liz says, peeking into the office, attempting to find Maka behind the stacks of paperwork. "It's a little girl. She's got a funky hairstyle and a hot dad."
Maka nods as she writes another set of numbers down. "I'll be out in a minute."
"Also, Maka?"
"Yes, Liz?"
"Take a break every once in a while, all right? We're all kind of worried about you. Or, at least, I know Patti and I are." She chews a gum with more effort.
"I'll do the best I can, but summer actually keeps us busy."
"Yeah, yeah," the waitress mumbles. "I'll be out back for ten minutes since the morning crowd died down."
"Liz?"
"Yes, Maka?"
"I'll take a break from this when you quit smoking."
"Whatever. I guess we're even for now, then." Liz huffs and walks out the back door into the grease-trap alley.
Maka walks to the front and before she can get the swinging kitchen door all the way open, a young girl is in her arms, grinning. She laughs. "Hi, Angela. How are you and your dad?" She holds the girl more carefully as she spots Mifune in a booth in the distance and starts to make her way there.
"Good, now that we're back here and I don't have homework! Dad says he's going to teach me how to go underwater this year. He bought me goggles. Can I show you them?"
She smiles. "Yeah, I'd love to see them." She puts Angela down and the girl rockets toward the booth, grabbing the bright-purple goggles off the table and putting them in Maka's outstretched hands. She admires them for a moment, the smile never leaving. "These are awesome! I wish I could get a pair."
"I'll ask dad to buy you a pair, and then you come with me underwater. I am gonna swim to the island."
Maka restrains a laugh at Mifune's wide-eyed response to his daughter's ambitions.
Soul watches them interact for a few minutes from the kitchen window, then joins Liz in the alley with a cigarette of his own. He leans against the wall beside her, and holds out the tip to her lighter.
"You know," Liz starts, "Maka hates the smell of cigarettes." She takes a long drag of hers, then releases into the sun-shy alleyway. "Can't say I blame her, though."
"Liz, I'm… this whole plan to take Maka out of here… There's no way it's going to work. She's a huge part of this place." He tries to fight the urge to smoke. "And I think I'm starting to like her too much. It's going to complicate things. Because I'm really just… a pawn in a plan you and her father conjured up. It seems like even a relationship between us would seem planned."
"Why would it complicate things? That was half the point. I thought you two would be a good match, but I never put a gun to your head and told you to start crushing on her. You and Maka started the feeling thing on your own. It's natural." The tip of her cigarette flares and then fades as ashes fall from it to her feet. "God knows you both need some love in your life. You're not just a pawn, you're part of the end game. You both benefit from whatever forms so long as neither of you fucks it up, like I know the two of you tend to do in matters of the heart."
"I was just watching her from the kitchen, Liz. Everyone here knows her, and adores her. She's as much a part of this town as the sand and sea is." He does not bother to take a drag; he tosses it onto the ground like trash and crushes the flame with his heel.
"The town will move on, just like people tend to do. Like we all did, or are trying to do." She flicks her half-cigarette onto his, her eyes coated in some kind of nostalgic thought he knows he can't clear behind tar-stricken smoke and old brick buildings. "She needs it. She needs out of here, like she always deserved."
"But is it what she wants?" Soul turns to her and her gaze does not back down from his in the slightest; the eyes of a warrior meet his dead on. "Would it really make her happy?"
"It's what she needs," she says again.
"Shouldn't she be the one to decide what she needs?"
"She will. She's a smart girl." Liz ties her hair back up. "She just needs a little nudge in the right direction, and we're giving it to her." She pushes him lightly. "And she needs a good man to back her up when she finally breaks free of this place." The waitress returns to her shift behind the swinging white doors.
Soul and Maka talk on the porch every morning now before they walk to work, their hands sometimes brushing. Yesterday, she told him that in the summer she always leaves her window open a crack so she can hear the ocean, as she can't sleep in the humid-heavy heat without that refreshing sound nearby.
There's no way he'd feel like a hero, drawing her in and dragging her away to beeping horns and never-dying lights. He slumps against the cold-brick wall.
There's no way he'd be a hero, if he earned her heart while having the advantage. They're both tangled in the webs weaved by her best friend and father. He tries to hear the sounds of the waves in the shadows of the alley. He tries to block out the sounds of Liz and Spirit convincing him it's all for her best, despite never having talked about it with Maka first. He tries to forget that he's known a little about her for years from stories Liz has told him.
He tries to push out the realization that he might always be a step ahead of her, that he's doing things behind her back as well - never at her side.
He doesn't know what's good for any of them, anymore.
All he knows is she's too easy to fall in love with.